


red lights, green lights, is there a difference?

by golden_tragedy



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Car Racing, Don't Examine This Too Closely, M/M, i'm a little bit biased towards madrid, so they'll win most of their races, street crews, the timeline is weird af, they're all criminals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:48:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 19,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25504699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/golden_tragedy/pseuds/golden_tragedy
Summary: Cristiano Ronaldo never expected to find the most notorious street crew on his doorstep when he moved from England to Spain, but here he is, with a frustrated Sergio Ramos, a tired Iker Casillas, and a really good looking guy called Lionel Messi.OrCris joins Real Madrid and regrets it cause all the cute guys are in Barca, and Sergio is pissed because they're supposed to be racing and stealing cars but Cris can't stop talking about Messi.
Relationships: Gerard Piqué/Sergio Ramos, Lionel Messi/Cristiano Ronaldo, and a few other minor ships
Comments: 53
Kudos: 76





	1. In which Cris definitely does not fall in love

Cris followed Iker's directions and ended up in front of some parking lot. And if he's being honest, he has no idea where the hell he is. Iker smiles, beckoning him over to where he’s standing with another guy. 

“Hey,” he says, clapping hands with Cris, jerking his chin at the second guy “that’s Sergio, he’s one of our best drivers.”

“Hi,” Cris grins at him 

Sergio looks entirely unimpressed. Iker's mouth twists into a scowl, but he turns back to Cris.

“I’ve got some things to do, so Sergio’s going to take you around, get you the car, and you’ll find out your opponent in about… forty minutes? Good luck, don’t crash my cars.”

“Uh… Thanks.”

Iker winks at him, then he pulls out his phone and walks away without another glance at them. 

Sergio checks his own phone 

“Come on, lets meet Isco,”

“Who’s Isco?”

“Isco’s a jack of all trades. He can drive pretty great, he’s a good navigator and he’s pretty dangerous when he’s got tech in his hands. He’s how we can plan our races; he finds the empty roads and makes the courses. He’ll also give you your car.”

As they walk through wherever the hell they are, he explains the layout to Cris.

“So this is a pretty neutral zone, all the crews kind of just chill here before races, but still, don’t get too close.”

He points out a bunch of guys standing next to Lamborghinis and Porsches. 

“That’s Athletico Madrid, they’re our city rivals, and they’re all bastards. Their leader is Koke.”

“What about them?” Cris points to a group of guys, laughing and chatting as they mill around an assortment of cars-sports cars and just… normal cars. 

Sergio’s mouth twists in something akin to disgust.

“That’s Barca. In all honesty, they’re our only rivals. See the short guy with the Ferrari? That’s Leo Messi, their leader.”

He jerks his chin towards the shortest one there, he’s got a beard, brown hair and dark eyes, and Cris’ heart skips a quick beat as he looks over, spots him and gives a little secretive smile before turning back to his friends. Someone else from the group looks over, and he rolls his eyes when he sees Sergio.

“Sergio! Not racing tonight?”

“You wish,” Sergio laughs, slamming to a stop so he can glare at the guy

“He’s tripping, Leo, they haven’t managed to beat fucking Manchester!” the man snorts, shooting Sergio a rather horrible smile.

“Manchester? You lost to a guy from Deportivo! And there was an 11 second gap last time we raced, asshole.”

The other man flips him the finger, and Sergio snarls silently as he stomps away. 

“Who was that?”

“Gerard Pique. He’s not even that good. Honestly, just make a quick direction change and you’ve already won.”

“Is he any good, Messi?” Cris asks

“Messi is the most annoying little fucker in all of Spain, driving his stupid little tiny car everywhere, but he’s good.” Sergio relents, although it seems to physically pain him. 

They enter a well-lit garage and there’s a man there to meet them. He’s short, has thick wavy hair that he keeps pushing away from his eyes and he looks like he’s going to punch someone in the face.

“Hijo de puta, if you ever get that thruster knocked out again, I will fuck you over,” he growls, brandishing a wrench in Sergio’s face.

“What are you yelling at me for? Vidal’s the one who knocked it out!”

“Yes, well if he does it again, you break the bastard’s face. This car is the literal pinnacle of European engineering! It’s sex on wheels!” 

“Are you talking about the triple nine widow?” Cris raises an eyebrow and Isco nods.

“At least this one knows his cars.”

"What are you trying to say, Isco?" Sergio demands, his tone challenging, but he's grinning widely

"I'm just saying, you didn't know-"

“Alright, Isco, thanks. Where are my keys?” Sergio holds out his hand and jerks his chin at Cris “he needs a car.”

Isco drops a set of keys into his hand and turns to appraise Cris. 

“You know, I have the perfect car. Come.” He dashes over to a table, rifles through a drawer and picks up a pair of keys. He leads Cris through the garage and to a car hidden beneath a cover.

He pulls it off with a sharp yank, exposing a white car.

“This is the 1969 Chateaux Panther XX. It’s a classic. The engine on this baby? Not much that can beat it. If you take her for a spin and really open her up, you’d never drive anything else. She’s not the fastest, or the most agile, but she’s an amazing car and you don’t need a fucking Bugatti to win a race.”

Sergio approaches, 

“You ready? We should be getting to the tracks now.”

“The route today is awesome, Sergio, seriously, it’s epic. How the hell did I never find it before?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care.” He rolls his eyes 

“If Iker and Zizou end up liking you, you drop the car back here and I’ll paint it whatever colour you like.” Isco turns back to Cris

Cris nods, getting in and watching Sergio do the same. The car is sleek and aerodynamic, right now it’s quiet and still, but it still feels like it’s cracking with energy, ready to strike like lightning.

Sergio slips into his Widow and drives out of the garage, Cris following slowly, trying to get a feel for the car. He has to stop himself from gasping when the engine rumbles. He's barely opened it up, but can already feel the raw power of the machine beneath his hands. They drive to where the rest of Real is parked and Sergio takes Cris towards them.

He tries getting their attention, but everyone’s too busy talking and doing last minute checks on their cars. He growls under his breath, takes a deep breath and shouts

“Ay!” 

At that, they look over, a little confused but when they see Sergio they all quiet down.

“This is Cris, he’s on a trial run.” Sergio calls, and their attention flicks to Cris. He stares back at them, refusing to back down and when Sergio speaks again, there’s a smile on his face. 

“Iker’s not racing today, he’s got stuff to do with Zizou so it’s just us. Remember, we need three points, and that means all of us need to win by at least a margin of three seconds. Good luck, everyone.”

There’s a few whoops, but everyone goes back to their own cars. Before Cris can say anything, there’s feedback from the speakers placed everywhere and they all wince, covering their ears.

“All teams make your way to the race track, there are fifteen minutes until the race starts.”

“Took them long enough,” a blond guy with tattoos up his arm says, joining them as they walk.

“Hey, Toni.” Sergio grins at him “where were you yesterday?”

“Running a job for Zizou. Got those stupid cars and delivered them right to Simeone’s doorstep in return for not reporting Fede for that bump to Morata's car. It was so embarrassing.”

“The things we do to save the new guys’ asses,” Sergio shakes his head as they get close to a table being manned by a girl wearing things that honestly can’t be called clothes.

“Hi, Irina.” He says, winking at her, “what’ve you got for me?”

“A bunch of good luck wishes, you’re up against Dani Alves.”

“Again? How the fuck is that guy still racing? He tried to push me off a bridge!”

“Once again, I’ve got a bunch of good luck wishes.” She gives him a sympathetic smile, then turns her attention to Cris.

“Who’s this?” she purrs, winking at him.

“Cristiano Ronaldo. Iker’s considering adding him to the crew. Find his opponent for me, will you?”

“Oh! You’re him? You’re up against Koke, I think.” She rifles through her papers “yeah, you’re against Koke.”

Sergio considers this for a second.

“Not bad. If you’re as good as Sergio says, it shouldn’t be a problem. Come I’ll show you Koke’s car.”

It’s a Lamborghini, and it’s one of the fastest models. 

“Is he a good driver?”

“Koke? He’s decent, I guess, but he doesn’t know his car. That’s a pretty serious disadvantage. He can’t maximize its capabilities. Having a fast car doesn’t mean you win the race.”

“What about Alves?”

“It’ll be tough, he’s dirty, but I know his moves.” Is all Sergio says. 

Cris followed Sergio back to where the crew was, they were milling around their cars, but there was a definite tinge of excitement to the air. They were probably waiting to find out their opponents. 

“I’m with Alves, Cris with Koke. Toni, Philippe. Marcelo, Trent-Alexander, Marco, the little Parisian shit. Karim, Kylian.”

“We’re playing Juve, Bayern, Liverpool and Paris in the same night? Fuck me over.” A guy with long curly hair and a yellow Camaro says, leaning dramatically on the hood. 

Sergio glares at him.

“Shut up Marcelo. Where’s Marco?”

“In the fucking hospital.” Iker growls, appearing out of nowhere “he broke his leg an hour ago.”

“You fucking kidding me?”

“We don’t have one of our best drivers on the most crucial night in the season. What else could go wrong?” Marcelo asks, spreading his arms and frowning accusingly at the sky.

Cris stifles a laugh, but Marcelo catches it, and turns towards him, winking mischievously before Sergio gets their attention.

“We may not have Marco, but we’re still Real Madrid and all those teams together couldn’t stop us. You all have mad talent, skills that are better than anything those bastards could ever wish they had, and you’re going to give them all a show. If we go down, we go down swinging.” He glares out at all of them, Marcelo whoops, and then they all scream

“Hala Madrid!”

And ignore the way everyone nearby gives them dirty looks. Someone mutters ‘Forca Barca.” And Marcelo lunges for him playfully,

“Hello, Ney.”

“Good luck.” The guy says with a little wink and he and Marcelo clap hands before he disappears.

"Sergio Ramos, Dani Alves please make your way to the starting line within two minutes.”

Iker quickly mutters something in Sergio’s ear, he nods, getting into his car and then he’s gone with a loud roar.

“Come with me.” Iker says, tapping Cris’s shoulder and leading him to a building, climbing onto the fire escape for a batter view. 

Cris watches as Irina sashays onto the line, a checked flag in hand, scanty layers of silk not doing her any favours under the harsh headlights of the cars. He scans the crowd for Leo, craning his neck to catch a glimpse of the Barca leader, the ‘tiny little fucker’ who annoys Sergio so much. He sees him near the line, hands stuffed in his pockets and no one standing near him while he watches in silence. He seems to sense Cris’ gaze, lips curling upwards as they make eye contact before he looks pointedly back at the cars. Irina makes a show of dropping the flag, and then they’re gone. 

Sergio clearly knows what he’s doing, because accelerating that quickly off the line should’ve sent him spiralling off the track. Instead, he’s sailing casually a few metres in front of Alves. He drifts around a corner with maddening ease and Cris can’t see them for much longer before even the headlights disappear and all he can hear is people chattering excitedly. 

When he looks back down at Leo, the man is watching a screen showing two dots, one is white, the other black. 

“White is Sergio.” Iker says, sensing his question. 

As the race continues, the Real Madrid captain starts bouncing his knee, he glares at the screen, but other than that stays completely stone faced, never crumbles. His hands are clasped tightly in his lap, though.

Five minutes into the race, Cris isn’t sure how it happened, but Sergio is easily a few hundred meters in front of Alves. He can see the car coming back, Iker smiles in relief, Los Blancos burst into screams as Sergio crosses the finish line with Dani Alves nowhere in sight.

“And Sergio Ramos is the clear victor with more than five seconds to his win!” Irina says into a tiny mic clipped onto her finger. 

“Next up, Leo Messi and Saul.” 

Leo pulls up in a Ferrari, Saul- who Cris recognizes as someone from Atletico- has a Ferrari too. Irina waves the flag, they’re off. Leo isn’t going very fast, and Cris wonders what made him so dangerous that someone as good as Sergio was irritated by him. The race goes like that, Leo lingering a few meters behind Saul the entire race. As they get close enough to the finish line that Cris can see them, he sees Leo execute the most beautiful spin he’s ever seen, and he crosses the finish line right before Saul.

Iker growls. 

“Fucker.” He rolls his eyes as people start screaming

“Me-ssi! Me-ssi!”

“Koke, Cris, the starting line please.”

Cris stands up, Iker claps his hand

“Good luck.” He says. 

As Cris comes down from the fire escape, he sees Leo. He’s surrounded by his friends, but while they talk animatedly amongst themselves, he’s standing quietly as he watches Cris slide into his car, brown eyes gleaming. 

Cris winks at him.

Leo blinks furiously, then looks away. If it wasn’t so dark, Cris would’ve sworn the tips of his ears were a dark red. 

Cris can feel the car humming under his hands and he smiles, dragging his gaze up to Irina, who shimmies when she sees him looking, then drops the flag. 

Koke shoots forward, Cris following, he’s easily about fifty meters behind, but he isn’t worried. The track has a curve in a few hundred meters, and that’s when he’ll strike. He’s more about timing than just speed. He assesses Koke, the man’s driving pretty fast, but he definitely skids a few times before regaining control. Cris smiles, as a plan forms, accelerating when the curve comes into view. He accelerates until he’s going fast enough to drift around the corner, and with a quick gear change and Koke conveniently slowing down, he drifts smoothly, unable to contain his laugh as he overtakes Koke. 

Then he accelerates explosively, shooting forward. The rest of the track is straight, and it takes a bit of skill to prevent Koke from overtaking him, he’s forced to swerve, he even skids sideways for a while and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy seeing Koke’s furious expression. 

Red lights, green lights, they all become one.

Engines roaring.

Racing hearts, sweaty palms, his foot aching as he floors the accelerator. 

Laughing loudly as he crosses the finish line sideways, 30 meters ahead of Koke. 

Once he parks his car, he sees the Real crew running towards him, screaming at the top of their lungs. Then they’re screaming and jumping on him, Marcelo is screaming in his ear, Sergio nods and Cris recognises it for what it is-respect. Iker is laughing as he pulls Cris in for a hug, then he says

“Welcome to Los Blancos, Cristiano.” 

And Cris’s heart practically explodes with happiness. He looks over Marcelo’s curls to where he last saw La Pulga, and he’s unable to contain his smile when he sees Leo raising a bottle in his direction. Then his attention is recaptured by Isco who smiles at him.

“What colour do you want her?”

Cris shrugs

“Dark blue. Matte.”

Isco laughs

“Finally, someone with good taste.”

He holds his hand out for the keys and Cris gives them over. Irina calls the next race, Gerard Pique and Divock Origi. 

Cris stretches, and then he goes back to the fire escape, and looks for Leo. 

“Leo!” he shouts, and by some miracle he hears it, looking around for whoever called, and Cris waves his arms. Leo finds him and raises his eyebrows questioningly. Cris makes sure no one else is looking - he doubts they’d like him associating with their rivals – and gestures for Leo to join him.

Leo doesn’t react for a few seconds, then he slips away from his friends and starts making his way over. Cris moves away from the edge, sitting down with his back to the brick building as the race starts and Leo reaches him. He sits down next to Cris and takes a sip from the bottle in his hands.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“Congratulations,” Leo says “Madridista.”

“You too, cule.” Cris says with a grin, using the terms he heard Marcelo use when he talked about Barca “although I never thought I’d get into another crew so fast.”

“Another crew? Which one was the first?”

“Manchester United, back in England.”

“Man U? Really? Lucky! I’d pay to watch their Cristiano Ronaldo.” Leo says, raising the bottle to his lips as he shakes his head a little “that guy’s insane.”

“Aw, I’d never take money from you, Leozinho. You’re too cute for that.” Cris winks at him, and Leo blushes a deep, dark red. Then he processes what Cris said.

“Wait - you’re-”

“Nice to meet you, Leo Messi. I’m Cristiano Ronaldo.” Cris interrupts his rambling, sticking out his hand with a grin.

Leo, however, ignores it. 

“You- you were in Spain and now you’re a part of Real Madrid? What the hell, Cristiano?!” he swats at Cris’s arm and Cris winces, shielding himself.

“I didn’t plan it! Iker knows me from way back, so he offered me a job the minute I stepped foot in Madrid. Although, if you’d found me too, I definitely would have chosen Barca.” he let's his gaze slip down from Leo's eyes to his lips, then back up.

Normally he doesn’t lay it on this thick, but Leo seems like an oblivious kind of guy and Cris wants to ensure they’re both on the same page. Leo blinks, then he leans back against the wall and takes another sip. 

“Don’t let anyone else hear you say that. You’re a blanco now, and saying you would have chosen to be a part of the blaugrana is almost suicide.”

“Is it possible to... date someone from Barca?” Cris wiggles his eyebrows suggestively

Leo raises an unimpressed eyebrow, and Cris laughs

“Sure, but then you’d have to be like Sergio and Geri.”

“Geri as in Gerard Pique? Are they together?”

“The crew thinks so.” Leo shrugs, craning his neck to look for any approaching racers. “but it’s hard to tell. I don’t think they’ve admitted to anything.” 

Then he swears viciously, sitting up.

Cris follows his gaze to the track, where it seems Gerard is losing. 

“Fuck!” Leo slumps back, rubbing his eyes as Gerard crosses the line after his opponent.

He starts to get up but Gerard storms out of his car, ignoring his teammates, and both of them watch as Sergio follows. No one else notices, but Leo snickers before sitting back down. Cris watches as Elio and Gerard appear to scream and shout at each other for a good few minutes before they sit down together, talking quietly.

“You’re right. Definitely haven’t admitted to anything.”

“How do you know?” Leo frowns, staring at them.

“I’m pretty observant.”

“If you do say so yourself.”

“Hey! What happened to all the awe that came into your eyes when you would talk about me?”

“That was before I actually met you. Jerk.”

“Ass.”


	2. In  which Sergio definitely hates Gerard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sergio definitely hates Gerard Pique. And Cristiano is definitely *not* Iker's favourite. 
> 
> 'No, we definitely weren't talking about boys while planning a heist, I swear.'

The next morning, Cris is woken up by the insistent ringing of his phone. Squinting at it through sleep bleary eyes, he accepts the call when he sees it's Iker.

"Hello?" he says, wincing at his raspy voice

"Cris, come to the garage you got your car from by eleven, okay?"

"Uh, sure." he glances at clock, the hands pointing to nine-thirty. 

Yawning, he checks his phone and talks to his mother for a while before heading into the shower. He gets out, towelling his hair quickly and slides into a pair of old sweatpants and an equally old hoodie, but just as he's about to step out he realises Leo might be there. He runs back in, scanning his wardrobe and grabs a newer hoodie and a pair of jeans before carefully gelling his hair back, putting in his earring carefully and grabs his sunglasses. 

Then he sets off across the city, grabbing a coffee on the way. 

The parking lot is depressingly empty, and he groans at the sight. All that effort in the morning for nothing. He walks into the garage where Isco is practically buried in a car's engine, and Sergio is talking to Iker.

"Hi," he says as he walks over and iker smiles, 

"Come with me," he says and Cris follows him into a small room in the back where Iker perches on a desk.

"What's up?" he takes a long sip of the coffee.

"You did well yesterday, Koke's a pretty tough guy to beat."

Cris shrugs,

"He wasn't too bad,"

Iker snorts, but drops the subject.

"So, what do you want to help with during the day?"

"What are my options?"

"You can work in here with Isco and Marcelo, and later on when you're a bit more experienced you can go with Sergio to help out with the more hands-on things."

"What hands-on things?"

Iker says nothing for a minute, then sighs.

"Well, we are a street crew, and that means we do more than just race, so the more hands-on things would be staking out a location for a heist, dealing with other crews that get too close to our territory, all that jazz."

"And Sergio does all that?"

"Most of the time. He's vice captain for a reason."

"I want to be out there with him," Cris says coolly. He didn't join Real Madrid to sit on his ass in a garage. 

"It's not as simple as that, Cristiano-"

"Why not? You approached me for a reason and I joined for a reason, and neither of us want me sitting in a garage." he crosses his arms, and Iker sighs.

"For a criminal, you're a lot like a five year old," he mutters, but then sighs "fine. You can go with Sergio."

"Thanks, capi."

"Yeah, now I'm busy, so you can leave."

Cris rolls his eyes and leaves Iker alone, walking up to Sergio.

"Iker said I'm coming with you," he says by way of greeting

Isco pops out from the hood of the car and frowns

"He did?"

He nods, and Sergio sighs dramatically. 

"Let's go, then."

"Wait, hold on, how the hell did you convince Iker to let you go with Sergio on your first day?" Isco gapes at him, screwdriver forgotten in his hand.

"I don't know," Cris shrugs "I told him I wasn't here to sit on my ass."

"And you walked out of that alive? Without him calling your mother a whore?" there's a note of awe in Isco's voice.

"Yes?"

"Well, then Sergio, move over," Isco grins "you're not Iker's favourite anymore."

"Please," Sergio raises a hand, "I'm still the only one he shares his donuts with,"

"Oh no, you're not," Isco frowns "Iker literally just gave one to Cris."

"Liar. I forgot to bring his donuts today." Sergio sticks his tongue out and Isco winks at Cris.

"Worth a shot," he murmurs 

"What are we doing today?" Cris turns back to Sergio as Isco clambers into the car he was fixing.

"I'll tell you in the car," Sergio starts walking towards an ordinary black car, and just as they're about to get in, Cris bites the bullet.

"Hey, Sergio?"

His door already open, Sergio pauses, raising an eyebrow.

"Where are the other crews? Like Barca?"

There's a loud honk, and they both jump, looking around. Isco climbs out of the car, rubbing his forehead where there is an imprint of the Ferrari logo. 

"Did you just hit your for-"

"Did you just ask about Barcelona?" Isco almost squeals

"How did you even hear me-"

"Yeah, why are you asking?" Sergio frowns, 

"Oh, just wondering where they go during the day," he covers up smoothly and ignores the way Isco raises his eyebrows.

"I'll show you when we're out, come on let's go," Sergio says impatiently, "and Isco, Iker's going to be pissed if you're too busy listening to other people's conversations to finish that car you've been fixing for weeks,"

"Knowledge is power, Sese," Isco taps the side of Sergio's head with his screwdriver.

"Iker, Isco's spying on everyone for blackmail material!" Sergio calls loudly, smirking at Isco as Iker shouts angrily from his office 'we've talked about this Isco!'

"Asshole," Isco raises his screwdriver threateningly

Sergio raises his hands in mock surrender before getting into the car. Cris takes a look at the screwdriver, and quickly gets into the car. 

"It's always the tiny ones that are the most violent," he says with a little shudder as they drive out.

"All of them?" 

"Why don't you just ask me if Messi is violent or not?" Sergio sighs, looking over at him

"Because I get the feeling you guys don't like him much,"

"We respect him. We hate his crew." Sergio counters.

"Not all of his crew," Cris wiggles his eyebrows 

"What do you mean?" Sergio sounds calm, but his grip on the steering wheel gets a little tighter, 

"Gerard Pique-"

"Oh my god is it that obvious?"

"What? No. Leo and me saw you guys yesterday after the race."

"Shit," Sergio stops a red light

"No one else did, it's okay."

"I wasn't worried," he says and Cris nods 

"Of course not,"

They sit in silence for a while, then Sergio's voice is full of excitement as he whispers:

"Do you think he likes me?"

When Cris looks at him, he sees Sergio smiling a little.

"I'm not sure, I didn't hear anything. I just saw you guys screaming for a while and then sitting together."

"Do you think you'd be able to tell through a few texts?"

"I guess-"

"Here," Sergio hands him his phone opened to his chat with 'blaugrana shit'. Cris raises an eyebrow as he reads through several days worth of conversation that consists mainly of:

'you're an asshole and my crew is better than yours,'

'do you remember when i beat you by eleven seconds' 

'are you seriously still talking about that? how about when i beat you by four seconds and then five?' 

"Um, Sergio, if I hadn't seen you last night, I would've assumed you were enemies."

"But I don't hate him that much"

"Well, if you want him to know you like him, you need to be less...aggressive."

"But that's what our relationship is like!"

"Well fine! But you need to let him know you don't just message him to make fun of him?"

"What else would I message him about?"

"I don't know! Wish him a sincere happy birthday, or give a sincere congratulations for something?"

"Maybe," Sergio shrugs "anyways, this is the northern end of out territory. Beyond this is Barcelona's and Espanyol's territory.'

"Espanyol?"

"Barcelona's city rivals."

"Do we share a border with Barca, Espanyol and Athletico?"

"Yeah, once Roma took over Barcelona's territory. Don't know how they got them out, but it happened. Paris once took over Barca too, but they pushed back a few weeks later." Sergio takes a U-turn and starts driving in the opposite direction

"Has anyone taken over ours?"

"Barca got it a few times, but they didn't get too much space and we got them back for itby helping Espanyol get some more territory. Bayern is currently trying."

"Are they any good?"

"Locally, they're the undisputed kings but we're European royalty, so it's not going too well for them." Sergio stops at a fountain. "this is our southern end and Athletico's beyond that point."

"What are we doing today?" 

"There's a car shipment coming through in a week, and we need to figure out the best place to steal them."

"What's the route?"

Sergio pulls onto the side of the road, taking a map from the bottom of his seat and he opens it, showing Cris a path highlighted in red.

"Are there any tunnels?"

"Three, but they all have camera surveillance."

"There are no blind spots in any of them?" 

"We've only checked this one so far."

"It's time to do the other two, then, don't you think?" 

"Sure," he pulls his phone back out, ringing someone up. "yeah, Isco, you know those two tunnels we haven't done yet? Grab the camera footage for them and let me know if we enter a blind spot."

He puts Isco on speaker, and they drive slowly through the tunnels, but the first one is well covered . The next one is a little out of the way and thus doesn't have too many cameras. 

"Wait," Isco says "you just entered a blind spot."

"Okay, we're going to keep driving let me know when we're out of it," Cris says and there's silence for about fifteen meters. 

"Okay, I see you crystal clear."

"Any cameras pointing down that little alley on the left?" Cris asks, looking at an alley a few meters from the tunnel exit.

"None."

"Any outside that alley on the other end?"

"Yeah, on the left, but it's pretty far. I don't think it'll be able to catch a number plate or anything."

"Great. Thanks." he cuts the phone and Sergio nods in appreciation. 

"Now we just need to figure out how to do it. We'll need a decoy."

"What if we get a bunch of trucks, load the cars into one of them, and have them all drive off in equally suspicious directions." 

Sergio thinks about it for a second, face scrunching in thought. 

"It'll need some tweaking, but it could work."

"My plans always work."

"Of course."

"Can we get food?"

"Tapas?"

"Burgers."

"England has corrupted you."

"Shut up and get me a McDonald's." 

"Fine-wait. You and Messi saw me and Pique arguing? What the hell-"

"Sergio I swear to god."


	3. In which Cris is definitely a top

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barcelona let Bayern Munich through their territory so that they could annoy Real, and Sergio is pissed

A few days later, Cris and Sergio return to the garage after smoothing out any wrinkles in their plan to run it by Iker and the rest of the crew, who are all assembled in the garage. As soon as they step out of the car, they can hear Iker's voice booming through the entire space as he shouts about whore mothers, Bayern Munich, and attacks.

"Fuck," Sergio breathes, racing for the office, Cris following right behind him. "Iker-"

"Bayern's at our northern end," Iker hisses, slamming the phone down and dialling another number. 

"That means Barcelona let them in." Sergio's voice is cool and calm, and his face is set like stone as he crosses his arms, waiting for orders.

"Yes, and we'll deal with that later. For now you drive those bastards out. No matter what it takes." Iker pulls out a gun from his drawer and tucks it into his belt. 

"What about me?" Isco pops over Cris's shoulder, arching an eyebrow.

"You go with Cristiano and Sergio." Iker says determinedly "Toni, Luka you-"

The rest of Iker's orders are lost as Sergio grabs Cris's arm and pulls him out, Isco flies for his desk, pulling open a drawer from a hidden compartment Cris hadn't seen before. 

"Pick your poison," he says with a small smile, grabbing a gun for himself. Cris scans the drawer, picking up a gun, and two knives that he carefully tucks into his jacket. 

"You know how to use them?" Sergio cocks an eyebrow as he takes one for himself.

"Not my preferred weapon, but it's fun." Cris says with a grin as they slide into his car. 

Sergio gives him the directions, and soon, he's speeding through Madrid, taking back alleys and small, hidden roads to avoid the speed cameras. 

"Not bad, Cris," Isco shouts over the wind, as he drifts around a corner, and when Cris looks over at him, he sees an almost manic tinge of excitement in his eyes. It's also in Sergio's. And his. 

Sergio's phone rings, and he picks up,

"Yeah?"

He listens for a while, then hangs up. 

"Iker's saying that Toni, Luka and Casemiro managed to get them off their feet and into their cars, we just need to get them out now," 

"I love car chases," Isco hums, laughing slightly 

"Can we drive them straight back into Barca?" Cris asks as he takes a sharp turn.

"Fun," Sergio's says, smiling slightly. 

"Okay," Isco opens his phone "they should be coming onto this road through that alley in three, two, one."

A blue McLaren skids out of the alley, accelerating quickly, and Sergio and Isco lean out of the windows, guns in hand. They fire two warning shots, and the McLaren swerves dangerously, forcing Cris to slam the brakes. There's a loud thud as Sergio's head hits the window frame. Cris speeds up, until he's practically touching the bumper, forcing the McLaren to accelerate.

"Drive to their right now, so we can make them turn left at the intersection." Isco calls, his words barely reaching Cris due to the fast wind. 

He goes faster, until he and the McLaren are neck and neck, and as they reach the intersection, he presses the accelerator just a little more, so that he's blocking the road in front of them-giving the McLaren no choice but to turn left. When he looks in the side view mirror, he sees Sergio shooting him a thumbs up and he snorts, turning his focus back to the car. 

They're rapidly approaching Barcelona territory, and as the McLaren enters, Cris decelerates, slowing to a stop until they're certain the car is gone. Sergio and Isco get back into the car, rolling the windows up. 

"They're far enough away," Isco says, and Cris is turning away when there's the loud sound of a gunshot. 

"Fucking Barcelona," Isco hisses, looking as though he's going to jump out of the car and start beating people up "we weren't even within ten meters of their territory!" 

Cris rolls down the window as he drives away, as slowly as humanly possible, and sticks his middle finger straight into the air. 

"You're going to be murdered in your bed at night," Sergio says dryly, 

"If they come for him at night they'll end up doing something very different," Isco winks at him

"That is disgusting. I would never make out with someone who wanted to murder me." Cris shudders

"Well, making out with Messi is practically the same thing," Sergio shrugs 

"Wait, you've made out with Messi?" Isco snorts "how does that even work? he's so tiny."

"You're one to talk," Cris gives Isco's tiny frame a sceptical once over 

"I'm tiny, yes, but Messi's like...astronomically tiny."

"Luckily for Cris, though, Messi doesn't have an anger complex, so his dick is probably a good size." Sergio shrugs, leaning forward so he's propping his elbows on the armrest between Isco and Cris.

"Why would I care? It's not like he'd be fucking me." Cris raises his eyebrows

"Bold statement there,"

"What is that supposed to mean, Isco?"

"Just saying," he puts his hands up in surrender 

"Can you both shut up? Isco when's the next race?"

"Day after tomorrow, actually."

"Good, we need to beat those Barcelona assholes."

"Wait." Cris frowns "how do you guys even race against them after you fired at each other?"

"Well, that territory on the west is technically ours but we call it No Man's Land, and it's neutral. We don't keep anything important nearby, so there's no chance of stealing. If someone does become aggressive his crew is banned for the entire season." Sergio says matter-of-factly.

"And no one wants that, my races are to die for." Isco chips in

"Wait, are you telling me that nothing has been stolen from you despite the twenty different crews that come in and out?"

Sergio shrugs

"They're only allowed to take one specific route in and out of the place. If they deviate, we shoot. And we don't keep anything important within a thousand meters of No Man's Land."

"Where do we keep the important stuff?"

"I'll show you tomorrow. Right now we need to tell Iker about the plans for the heist."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I live for comments, so don't be shy :)


	4. In which Cris is definitely not drunk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cris races against Barcelona for the first time

Cris isn't too focused on Leo today. He knows Sergio would definitely kill him, Leo himself is surrounded by his own friends and anyways, Cris is far too competitive to talk to him on the same day he races Gerard Pique. 

When they found out ten minutes ago, Sergio couldn't stop laughing long enough to say 

"Cris, you're with Pique."

Marcelo snorted water out of his nose and Isco laughed so hard he dropped his wrench on his own toes.

"What?" he asked, completely bewildered

"Nothing, nothing. It's just that Pique's talents lie more towards the business aspect of things." Marcelo says, clearly struggling to hold in his laughter.

"So he's bad?"

"Oh, he's shit." Isco shakes his head with a grin. "make a quick direction change and you'll win."

Sergio turns back from announcing Karim against Juanfran and shrugs.

"You can beat him, easy."

"Yeah, definitely," Marcelo shrugs dismissively "he's much better than Pique."

"Your faith in me is astounding, considering you've only seen me race once."

"I saw you push Robert Lewandowski and Thomas Mueller out of our territory, Cris. And they're two of the best."

"Thanks, Marcelo." Sergio shakes his head wryly "now get ready, Irina's calling the races soon."

Feedback plays through the speakers as Irina says,

"Marcelo, Pjanic, starting line please."

"Good luck," Sergio gives Marcelo a quick kiss on the cheek and turning back to Cris. "no fucking around with Leo today, alright? This is the last day of the group stage and we can't be seen with them or they'll accuse us of 'throwing them off their game'"

"Okay," Cris climbs up onto the fence beside them to get a better view as Marcelo and a Juventus player skid off the starting line.

He watches until he can't see them anymore, then looks around, trying to entertain himself. he and Isco play a game of fuck, marry, kill, and when Cris is scanning the parking lot for three people to give as options to Isco, he meets Leo's gaze. This time there is no amusement or warmth in his eyes, and he won't find any in Cris's either. They hold their gazes for a few more seconds, then Isco gets impatient so Cris has to look away. 

"Okay, okay. John Terry, Mandzukic, Costa."

"What the fuck, Cris? How the hell do I choose? I want to kill all of them."

Cris shrugs, grinning when Isco punches him in the shoulder.

"Fine, kill Costa, fuck Terry, marry Mandzukic. Okay, your turn. Kevin De Bruyne-that guy over there-, Coutinho, Neymar."

"Oh shit okay. Kill De Bruyne, fuck Coutinho, marry Neymar."

"Wait really?"

"Why not? He's cute. Or he would be if he didn't have pink hair."

"He manages to pull it off, though, doesn't he?"

"Yeah, actually." Cris tilts his head, "I like his earring."

"You're such a slut, Cris," Sergio snorts 

"You're one to talk, you kissed Toni and Luka in the same day once." Isco rolls his eyes

"I told you, it was an accident!"

"How the hell do you kiss two different people and say it was an accident?"

"Luka and Toni both had short hair and we were going on a road trip once," Sergio turns to Cris "I feel asleep in the back, Luka was driving and Toni was in front. I kissed Luka before we left and when I woke up, they had switched places. I was sleepy and thought Toni was Luka, so I kissed him."

"I try not to think about it," Toni mutters

"Excuse you, I'm a fabulous kisser," Sergio hisses, shoving him lightly.

"Right." Toni says dryly, and turns away to talk to Casemiro.

"It's Marcelo who crosses the finish line first with a difference of two seconds." Irina drawls "can someone beat these Blancos? It's really annoying to see them winning all the time,"

"Don't worry, Irina!" Pique shouts "we're playing them today!"

"Was that supposed to be your way of saying you'll win?" Irina snorts derisively and everyone but Barcelona laughs

"You better win now," Isco mutters in Cris's ear.

"I will."

"So it was supposed to be Dybala against Aguero now, but I'm excited for Ronaldo versus Pique, who's with me?" Irina asks, raising her eyebrows

The resulting cheer is deafening.

Cris grins and slips into his car as Irina laughs

"The people have spoken!" she practically yells "Cris, Pique, on the line please."

Gerard Pique drives a Ferrari and he doesn't so much as glance at Cris. This should be fun. irina's wearing red silk today and it's giving her a little more coverage than yesterday, but she shimmies again before dropping the flag. 

Cris doesn't wait for his opponent to slip up this time. This needs to be utterly and undisputedly a win for him. He shoots off the starting line. Today's track is straight at the beginning, then there are a few hundred meters of twists and turns. He's far ahead of Pique, and if he's being honest, Pique was the last thing on his mind. The only thing he was thinking about was the feel of the car under his hands. Isco said it was powerful, but he hasn't needed to really open her up until now, and she's spectacular. The purr from her engine is almost musical as he pushes the accelerator further and further, using one hand to steer and the other to put the windows down. The wind whips like cold knives over his face, making him achingly aware of the adrenaline in his veins, his heart beating painfully in his throat as he laughs in sheer exhilaration. He rounds a corner, drifting perfectly. 

That's where Pique gains a little ground, but ultimately it is not enough. The roads are narrower now, and he's in front, going much faster than Pique and because he hasn't slowed down at all, he's still far enough ahead for this to be a stunning victory. 

Irina is screaming something about six seconds when he crosses the finish line. He steps out, unable to stop grinning, eyes wild with adrenaline and excitement. 

"Holy shit!" someone's screaming -Isco- as he hugs Cris so hard that he stumbles back a step. 

"That was...fuck, Cris!" Sergio shakes his head, grinning so wide that Cris is momentarily blinded by the whiteness of his teeth. 

As he hugs the rest of them, he turns to see Leo staring at him, face completely blank. Cris turns away first. He doesn't care. He is on top of the world. He drinks too much, laughs too loud, and he's swearing too much, and he's lying on the roof of his car when he presses his lips to Isco's in a kiss that makes his world tilt upside down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i live for comments :)


	5. In which there is a heist and Cris makes a move

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time to steal some shit, and Cris is so ready for it. In fact, in the adrenaline, he might've asked for Leo Messi's number.

When Cris and Isco wake up in the same bed the next morning, it isn't awkward at all. It's pleasantly comfortable. 

"I don't want a relationship," Isco says before Cris can get a chance to do anything "but hooking up is okay."

And Cris smiled at him before going into the bathroom. That's okay with him too. When he comes out Isco is watching a football match while eating cereal. 

"When are the cars coming through?"

"Eight at night, we've got a day to kill."

"What matches are on?" Cris grabs an apple and sits next to Isco, propping his feet on the coffee table.

"Premier League football mostly."

"Ew."

"I know."

"Let's just go to work. It's better than watching this."

"Yeah I need to swap out the license plate on Iker's car for a fake."

"He's driving us?"

"He always does, he's captain after all."

So they both go to work, and Cris helps Sergio with some last minute things, and as they're tying bandanas around their faces, an idea occurs to Cris.

"Sese, come with me," he grabs Sergio's hand and takes him to Iker's office "Iker what are we doing with those cars?"

"Probably just sell them off, I suppose." he shrugs, looking at him suspiciously "why?"

"We could leave them somewhere in Barcelona's territory, or Bayern Munich's. Then tip off the police."

There's a stunned silence. Sergio gapes at him, Iker looks thoughtful.

"That's risky. That means we're declaring all out war with Barca."

"We can't do that right now, we've got too much going on to risk them attacking," Sergio chips in

"Then pin it on Bayern. Get camera footage of the trucks coming out of Bayern's territory and entering some warehouse on Barcelona's." Cris counters

"Barcelona would be able to get out of any trouble easily though, they could just say they had nothing to do with it." Sergio frowns

"They'll be pissed at Bayern. They'll do our dirty work for us and just fuck them over. Then when they're weak after that fight, we can pay them back for what they did last night," Iker shrugs

Iker scrunches his face up in thought, turning to the map tacked on one of the walls. Bayern's territory is to Barcelona's north, so they'd have to get one of their trucks all the way to Bayern without Barcelona noticing.

"We could take it through Athletico's territory from here," Iker traces a path on the map "go through Espanyol's territory there, enter Bayern's and drive to this warehouse on the corner of Barca's territory and leave the way we came."

"Barca's always got heavy surveillance there," Sergio counters, crossing his arms as he leans against the wall. 

"Call Isco," Iker jerks his chin towards the door. Cris sticks his head out, catching Isco's gaze and beckoning him in.

"What up, Capi?" Isco asks, talking around the screws he's holding in his mouth. 

"Can you get into Barcelona's cameras in this area?" Iker points to it and Isco raises his eyebrows

"Sure. I was standing near Sergi Roberto yesterday and he was talking about the software they use for their security. It should be easy to bypass. It'll take some time though," 

"How long?"

"If I get working on it now, it should take an hour, an hour and a half. What do you need?"

"We're getting our trucks in there, Barca can't see it. We just need a five minute window. But I want you to record the truck, send it to the police because we're pinning this on Bayern."

"Sure." Isco shrugs "that'll be easy enough."

Iker nods as Isco leaves to start hacking his way into the cameras. 

"Go get ready, we're leaving in five," Iker tosses over his shoulder 

As they wait, Sergio is methodically wrapping a layer of tape around the base of his fingers. Toni is quietly lacing up his shoes, everyone else is putting on their gear. 

Cris turns to the mirror, carefully tying the red bandana over his nose so it covers the lower half of his face. 

"Good luck," Sergio moves down the line, giving everyone a quick kiss on the cheek, and Isco sits at his desk behind the computer so he can monitor the cameras. 

"Okay, let's go." Iker comes out of his office, and all of them-covered head to toe in black- climb into his Audi. The drive is silent, Cris flexes his fingers, warming them up for the damn near death defying acrobatics they're going to do. And he's reminded about why he joined Madrid in the first place. No one loooks nervous, they are all cool, calm and collected. These people thrive underneath the spotlight. 

"Okay, all of you ready?" Iker asks as they get right behind the car carrier

"Yeah," Sergio says, grinning over his shoulder at Cris, who can't help but grin back. 

Iker presses the button to open the sunroof, and Sergio climbs up, carefully sliding onto the hood. Toni follows and Cris goes after him, carefully getting onto the hood. He jumps, hands grasping for the carrier, and he grabs it, breathing a sigh of relief as he pulls himself up. Sergio hops up right after him, and they both move to the cars, Toni, Luka and Karim racing for the remaining ones. He pulls out his lockpicking kit, jiggling it around and opens the door as quietly as he can without alerting the driver. Then he gets in and closes the door. From here, it's a race against time. Iker's overtaken the carrier by now so that he can get Eder, Raphael, Casemiro, and Marcelo can get into the decoy trucks, leaving one for Sergio to drive.

Toni chose the last car in the line, and on the count of three, he lowers the ramp for the cars at the same time that Cris, Sergio, Luka and Karim start the engines. 

The driver shouts in alarm, sticking his head out of the window. They all reverse off the ramp and drive faster than they should be, back the way they came, where the alley Cris and Sergio found the other day is waiting. 

They back the cars into one of them, Sergio gets in the driver's seat and Cris gets next to him, and all the five trucks exit the alley. Casemiro's goes back onto the road to give the police someone to chase. The rest of them set out in all different directions.

"How long is the drive?"

"About forty minutes," Sergio says "we can't draw attention by going fast, and Iker needs time to get our cars to the warehouse we're dropping the trucks at."

Cris nods and turns to the window. Part of him wants to start celebrating but it's not over yet, they need to get past Athletico, Espanyol, Bayern Munich and Barcelona without being spotted, so he forces himself to stay focused. 

They get through Athletico's defence as easily as though there were none at all, Espanyol is equally easy and they only have ten meters of Bayern territory to get through before they cross over into Barcelona's. Carefully driving into the warehouse, they leave the truck, get into their cars and drive back out as silently as they came. He's back in home territory when he skids to a stop just next to Barcelona's border. 

He rings Isco, and doesn't wait for him to say anything before he asks for Leo's number. He thinks it's time to talk. When Isco asks why, he says so that they won't be suspected of anything, and he reluctantly agrees, handing the number over.

"Hello?" a slightly sleepy voice says and Cris smiles a little 

"Hi, Leo."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is going a bit slow in terms of Leo/Cris, but I do have to strike a balance between them being literal criminals and love interests at the same time, so please be patient. I live for comments, so tell me what you think!


	6. In which Leo is a klutz

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At least it was Leo's disgusting hoodie that got ruined and not anything of Cris's.

"Cris?" Leo sounds a little more awake 

"Yeah, it's me."

"What do you want." he doesn't say it like a question. It's more of a demand. 

"Aggressive much? I wanted to take you out for coffee or something," 

"It's two in the morning."

"No better time to have coffee, Leo."

"Fuck you. I'll text you a place, meet me there in twenty."

"Fair enough," Cris says, then hangs up. Two minutes later, an address pings onto his screen and he enters Barcelona's territory. He doesn't have to go far, it;s still close enough to the edge that it doesn't raise any alarm bells for the Barca crew and it'll be easy for him to make a quick escape if it comes to that.

The coffee shop itself is a small, quaint shop with a vintage look to it tucked away in a corner of the street. He walks in, nodding to the cashier and takes a seat at the bar facing the windows, looking out at Barcelona. It's different to Madrid, it's barely noticeable, but Barcelona has more dainty feel to it. He's texting a friend from back home when he hears an incredulous 'Ronaldo?' and turns around, bracing himself for the worst. 

"Hello, Pique. Have you made a full recovery from your loss yet?" 

"What the fuck are you doing here?" he hisses, moving closer so he's practically in Cris's face. 

"Oh, you're still a little upset. It's okay, I would be too if I lost by 6." Cris mutters, 

"Don't fuck with me Ronaldo," he glowers "you're on our territory and we're allowed to do whatever the fuck we want to trespassers." 

He feels the coolness of a gun pressed to his chest as Pique turns, blocking the gun from sight. 

"Please stop," Cris whispers mockingly, making an exaggerated expression of terror "you're scaring me!"

"I will fucking shoot you if you don't get out of our territory," Pique warns 

"No you won't." Cris smiles a rather vicious smile at him. 

He elbows Pique on the inside of his thigh, stepping on the arch of his foot simultaneously. As Pique hisses in pain, he grabs the gun, wrenching it out of his grasp and presses it carefully against Pique's chest. 

"Don't feel too bad," he shrugs "most people faint when I smile at them. You were just stunned." 

"By what?" Pique snorts "the fake tan?" 

"I wouldn't be surprised if you were, you desperately need one."

Pique's nostrils flare, but as he's pulling back his fist, the door to the shop slams shut.

"Gerard, get out." Leo hisses, glaring at him. 

"But-"

"Gerard Pique get your ass out and back to base."

He glowers at Cris one last time before storming out. Leo's lips twitch, but he says nothing as he joins Cris at the bar. 

"What do you want?" he asks, jerking his chin towards the menu.

"Moccaccino."

He nods, going to the counter and coming back with two Moccaccinos. Handing one to Cris, he perches himself on his right and props his chin on a hand.

"What are you doing here?" he doesn't sound too happy, and there's an iciness coming from him. 

"Well, you said we could date, but only in secret, so here's our first date." Cris takes a sip of his Moccaccino

Leo spews his coffee over the table where it starts dripping onto Cris's jeans. 

"Oh shit," he practically shouts, pulling his questionable black and red hoodie off and throwing it over the coffee

Cris, halfway through the motion of grabbing napkins from the plate next to him, pauses, frowning. 

"Shit," Leo groans, putting his head in his hands "I'm sorry," 

"It's fine, there's nothing else that monstrosity deserved to be used for."

Leo gives him an unimpressed look 

"This is a part of a set. There's a cap, joggers and pants. And a shirt."

"That is disgusting."

"Were you serious? About this being a date?" Leo stands up, beckoning Cris outside where he wrings the coffee out of his hoodie. 

"I was, but now I'm not sure? You don't seem very-"

"No, no" Leo says quickly "I like you, I just- I saw you. Last night. On your car."

There's a long silence as Cris tries to remember what happened on his car. Right. Kissing Isco. 

"Oh, you mean he thing with Isco? No, I'm not into him like that, he's not into me like that, and I was drunk." 

"Wait, really?"

"Yes, Leo" Cris throws him a sideways glance as they start walking "I literally asked you out the second we first met."

"I didn't know if you were kidding or not!" 

"Well, now you do," he drains the last of the coffee, throwing it into a trashcan as they enter a park.

"Cris, it's not that simple," Leo sighs "we're Barcelona and Real Madrid, and-"

"No we're not," Cris shrugs "right now we're Leo and Cris."

Leo rubs a hand over his face 

"And how long do you think that will work, Cris? We can't just pretend our crews don't exist."

"We can. When we're together, our crews don't exist. We don't talk about them. I want to know Leo the oblivious idiot from Barcelona, not Leo the captain of Barcelona"

"This is doomed to fail," 

"Maybe, but let's have fun before it does all right?"

They pause in front of a football, both of them staring down at it.

"Cris you've seen Sergio and Gerard, hell, you saw how Gerard was with you ten minutes ago, how do you expect-" he cuts himself off when Cris toes the ball towards him. "What?"

"Let's play," he gestures towards the ball

"Cris-"

"Come on!" he groans throwing his head back and rolling his sleeves up "I'm good, I promise."

Leo sighs, giving the ball a little nudge. 

"If that's seriously the best you can do, you might want to consider moving out of Spain."

Glowering at him, Leo takes a step back, and gives it a kick, watching as it curls perfectly into the top right bin of the goal not too far from them. Cris does his best to look unimpressed. 

"Good job, Leo. That's the best bit of passing I've ever seen."

"You never said I was supposed to pass!"

"Well you were supposed to do anything but that! Come on, pass it to me. I'll show you how it's done."

"Someone's cocky."

"I bunked school to play football for 13 years. I deserve to be cocky."

"Shut up and put your money where your mouth is," Leo kicks it back to him and jogs over, standing opposite him with a hint of challenge in his eyes. 

Cris snorts, before kicking the ball forward and starting the game. 30 minutes later, they're both sweating and panting, the ball lying forgotten in the goal after a 40-40 draw. 

"We're both terrible defenders." Leo pants 

"Now I'm trying to figure out if you were just that bad of a defender or if I'm that good." Cris says as he lies down spread-eagled on the grass, 

"I was that bad." Leo rolls his eyes as he lies down next to him.

"Well, yeah, you were. But I was good too."

"You were doing stepovers the entire time!"

"It's a good move!"

"Not when I'm standing thirty feet behind you! Those were completely unnecessary" 

"It's called the beautiful game for a reason, and your disgusting little direction switches are not beautiful"

"They're a hundred times more effective than your ridiculous tricks. Holding your hands under the ball was so unnecessary!"

"You're just mad you can't do it." 

There's silence for a few seconds, then Leo whispers almost so quietly that Cris barely hears it

"I'm honestly more mad that you looked so good doing it."

Cris grins to himself, then rolls over, propping his chin on his elbow so he's directly over Leo.

"That was absolutely terrible, but thank you." 

And he lowers his head, carefully brushing his lips against Leo's then moving away to gauge his reaction. Leo's eyelids flutter open, 

"Why'd you stop?" he wraps his arms around Cris's neck, pulling him on top of him. 

So Cris kisses him again, deeper this time, hands tangling in Leo's hair, and when Leo arches upwards deepening the kiss, Cris let's him roll him over so he's the one on the bottom. He bites his lip to keep from moaning when Leo moves down to his neck, and through half shut eyes, he sees a woman speed-walking past them, averting her eyes. 

"Are we going to do this in the middle of a park?" he whispers, becoming a little more alert. 

Leo looks up, watching the woman leave their vicinity.

"It's not like I can take you to my house." he bites out, giving him an apologetic glance. 

"Isn't that something you should have thought of before?" Cris frowns at him

"Sorry." Leo winces, moving off him 

"I never said you could get off me." Cris grouses

"I think me just lying on top of you would get uncomfortable after a while."

"You're not very heavy,"

Leo just pulls Cris closer to him , wrapping his arms around his waist and resting his cheek on his shoulder. 

They lay like that until the sun rises, basking in the other's warmth under nothing but a starry sky, and there is no Barcelona or Real Madrid, and there is only Leo and Cris.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tell me what you think :)


	7. In which there is knife throwing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Espanyol captain wants Real's help in stealing some territory from Barcelona while they deal with the police askign about the cars. Chaos ensues.

Cris and Sergio are on another routine run, nothing too special. They’re just driving by the Athletico border when Sergio’s phone rings. 

“See who it is, will you?” Sergio jerks his chin at his phone, lying face-down on the dashboard.

Cris picks it up squinting at the screen.

“Pique.”

“Oh,” Sergio pulls up on the side of the road, grabs the phone and answers “Hello? I fucking told you not to call me-of oourse I know!”

They argue about something or the other for a while, then Sergio stays silent for a while, then sighs.

“Okay, I get it. Yeah. Thanks, Geri. Me too.”

He hangs up, and Cris raises an eyebrow

“Since when is he ‘Geri’?”

“That night you beat him.”

“Wait, you talked to him?”

“We ran into each other, so yeah.”

“And?”

Sergio grins so widely it looks like it’ll split his face in half.

“We’re dating.”

“Wait, really?” 

“Yeah, I mean we fought for a while, then I got kind of sick of it, ‘cause I’ve liked this bastard for literally ages, so I snapped and told him I was sick of this. He was pretty surprised, but then we kissed and now,” he shrugs “we’re together.”

“And, um… it's working?”

“It is,” Sergio says contentedly, and he’s smiling as he starts driving back to the garage. 

Guys," Isco calls, and Cris and Sergio walk over, a little apprehensive because of the urgency in his voice.

"What's up?" Cris peers over his shoulder at the security camera footage he's pulled up 

"That's the Espanyol captain on our border, he's waiting for us." 

"Is anyone else around?" Sergio glances into Iker's office, but it's empty and so is the garage. 

"Not currently, we've got a lot going on right now."

"We'll go meet him, I'm vice anyways," Sergio shrugs, getting back into his car. "Let's go, Cris. Bring your own car."

So Cris follows him out, both of them weaving through the backstreets of Madrid, finally pulling up in front of their border with Espanyol. The gun tucked in it's holster on his thigh is perfectly hidden by the long coat he's wearing   
to protect from the chill, and you would barely guess that Sergio was armed with a gun and three knives as they walk over to him. 

"Why are you here?" Sergio asks, and to his credit, he didn't shoot him on the spot.

"We know you want to get Barcelona back, and I'm here to ask you for help in gaining territory from them." he says, and to his credit, he doesn't piss himself at the sight of a glowering Sergio.

Even Iker tends to stay away when Sergio glares like that 

"Why should we get involved in your ridiculous territory fight and risk losing our crew?"

"Barcelona's already in disarray, we saw the cops and Messi having a heated argument. Something about stealing. In any case. Now's the perfect time."

Cris has to make a conscious effort not to grin at Sergio.

“Sure, but that doesn’t answer my question.” Sergio raises a single eyebrow

“We allow you unopposed access to this road.” Espanyol’s captain points to the one next to them and Sergio’s eyes gleam. Cris recognises it as one going straight to Bayern Munich’s territory. 

“When are you planning to do it?" Cris crosses his arms, 

"Five hours from now, nine at night. Barcelona ought to have bribed the police by now, so they’ll be attacking Bayern. We need to catch them when they’re off guard."

"We'll let you know." Cris nods to him, and he and Sergio both turn away, getting back into their cars. Isco's waiting impatiently for them with Iker and everyone else.

"What happened?" Iker raises an eyebrow.

"They're planning to attack Barcelona tonight. The cops have gotten into Barca's warehouses."

"Nice," Marcelo whoops, high fiving Cris. 

Iker rolled his eyes, but even he's grinning. 

"Let's do it," he shrugged, "I was getting bored anyways."

"That is a terrible reason to start a war, but I'm down," Sergio tosses over his shoulder as he rifles through Isco's weapons drawer.

"Come on," Iker says "let's go talk to the Espanyol guys and figure this out properly."

He and Sergio get into the car, and Isco turns away from a conversation about dogs with Casemiro to jerk his chin at a cutout of Barcelona's crest. It's barely recognisable, because there's multiple knives sticking through it. 

"Up for some target practice?" 

“Always,” Cris pulls out a few knives from the target, handing a few to Isco and keeping the rest for himself. 

“Whoever gets the most knives in the centre wins, I guess,” Isco scratches his nose with the tip of the knife.

“Bet,” Cris flips one of them in his hands, getting a feel for the weight and spin, then he cocks his arm back, throwing the knife at the target. It sails through the air, flipping over and over, embedding itself perfectly in the centre of   
their crest. 

“Shit, Cris. Is there anything you’re bad at?” Isco grins, throwing his own. It lands a few inches below Cris’s. 

“Defending in football. Free-kicks.” 

“What position would you play?” 

Another knife from Isco embeds itself into the yellow portion of the crest. Cris throws his right next to it. 

“Forward. Definitely.”

“Midfielder for me. There’s just something about controlling the pace of the game that makes me excited.”

“I guess,” Cris shrugs, throwing another. Isco throws his last, then they move to their cars. “Can you help me with the torque?”

“What the hell are you messing with the torque for?”

“It’s at 440 right now, I want it up to 580 so it can get to 330 km/h.”

“That’s suicidal, you know that’s dangerous right? Practically no effective brake force for short distances.” 

“I know.” 

“I refuse. We can take it up to 500 first, get a feel for it and then take it further. You don’t change an old sword for a new one before a battle, and you don’t change an old system for a new one before a war.”  
For once Isco looks completely serious, and though Cris wants to argue, he refrains from it. He knows he can handle it, but it would be better to take it slow-if only to reassure Isco. So he agrees, and Isco pops the hood, and both of them bury themselves in a tangle of wires, snipping one here, joining one there, and when Cris finishes giving a screw a good push in, they step back. 

“There you go. 500 Newton meters worth of torque.” Isco dusts his hands off. 

“Gear up, everyone,” Sergio shouts as he walks into the garage. “We’re going in.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More of a filler than anything, needed to get Sergio/Pique started lol. We're going to get a little action and some Leo/Cris in the next one probably, so yeah. Also I can't find the name of Espanyol's captain?


	8. In which Sergio has had enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sergio's sick of not being able to kiss Gerard, so he makes his move right after Gerard loses horrifically to Cris by 6 seconds, because what is 'the right time?' supposed to be?

Sergio doesn't think he's ever been this excited for a win. Cris beat Geri by six seconds.  
Real Madrid beat Barcelona by six seconds. 

Nothing could be better, but as he takes a long swig of the bottle Toni is passing around, he sees Gerard walking out of a building. 

"I'll be right back," he says, but no one hears him. And when he looks back, it's because Cris and Isco are kissing with alarming intensity on the roof of the Panther.

He might've paused to wonder about it, but he's a little too drunk to care. He slips away from them, walking over to where Gerard is standing by his car. He almost falls into Messi, who is gaping at Cris and Isco like he’s never seen two guys kiss before.

"Hey, Geri," he says, stumbling a little before coming to a stop right in front of him. It's like he's invisible. Gerard doesn't so much as glance at him.

"Geri," he says again. No response.

"Geerriii" he pokes his arm lightly. Then a little harder. By the time Gerard deigns to look at him, Sergio is practically stabbing him.

“If you’re here to talk about the race, Ramos, I will not hesitate to shoot you.”

" 'm sick of this, Gera-”

“Of what?” Geri frowns at him.

“Of Real Madrid and Barcelona getting in the way of us.”

“There is no us.” Gerard says shortly, turning away.

Sergio feels those four words like punches to his gut, but he keeps going, because he’s sick of it. He’s sick of only fighting with Gerard. He wants to kiss him, and run his hands through his hair and watch stupid romcoms with him. 

“There could be,” he whispers, and Gerard sighs.

“Maybe in your dreams, Sergio. We’re too different.” 

“But I want to try, Geri! I’ve known you forever, and I really like you, and I want us to be the exception!”

Gerard just shakes his head. Sergio feels his heart starting to sink, but he tries one last time, because he doesn’t want to give up. He’s had enough of watching him from a distance and wishing he could be there when Gerard’s happy, or sad, or lonely,

“Can you just answer one question?” he asks, and doesn’t bother being upset about how vulnerable he sounds. That’s sober Sergio’s problem. 

Gerard sighs, looking back at him, raising an eyebrow.

"Will you leave me alone if I do?"

"Yes," Sergio rolls his eyes

“Fine.”

“Do you not like me? Or do you like me and just don’t want to be with me because of our crews?” 

There is a long silence, and Sergio’s staring straight into Gerard’s blue eyes, and nothing really matters anymore. 

“I do like you,” he says, and it’s so quiet that you could almost hear Sergio’s heart start to beat faster and faster, until it’s hammering in his throat. “And I want to try, but I don’t want to fight with you and never see you again. I don’t want us to be happy together and then lose it because we’re on opposing crews.”

“I can’t promise that,” Sergio says “but I can promise that I’ll try if you do. Please, Geri.”

And the next thing he’s aware of is Gerard’s lips on his. There are people screaming behind them as two cars shoot off the starting line, but the only thing that matters to Sergio is the faint smell of Gerard’s cologne and the lingering taste of salt on his lips. 

"I'll try, Sergio." Gerard whispers, and everything is perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I found myself wondering how their conversation went, so here it is. The next chapter will follow the normal timeline.


	9. In which there is a stabbing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Real Madrid raids Barcelona and it's...chaotic.

Cris is… nervous, he supposes. He’s not entirely sure, but as he and Isco sneak into Barcelona’s territory, his heart is beating far too fast. 

Isco doesn’t say anything, and Cris prefers it that way. They have orders, they have a plan and it’s time to carry it out, there’s no time for talking. Toni winds up beside them too, and all three of them quietly make their way through Barca’s territory. Iker’s given them a rough location of where they need to be. The plan is to cover 200 metres of ground before Barcelona get here. Ideally they should take more, Iker said, but 200 was the bare minimum. 

As they creep through the back alleys, he keeps his gun held carefully by his side, hand loosely gripping the trigger guard. A lot of people he’s known, Wayne Rooney being one of them, accidentally shot their own feet because they liked keeping their finger on the trigger. 

“Everyone in position?” Iker’s voice asks through the comms. 

“Almost,” Isco breathes amidst several murmurs of assent. 

“Those of you not there yet, hurry up. The Espanyol guys got in touch with me, and Barca are on their way.”

“Guns blazing and everything. Be careful, everyone.” Sergio says and then they lapse into silence. 

Upon reaching their positions, Toni sets up on a fire escape, he claims he’s better from long range. Isco picks the alley wall, so he can easily duck back and buy himself time to reload if he needs to, and Cris gets behind a car. He’s not much for hiding. 

There’s the loud pounding of feet drawing closer, and he readies himself, shifting onto the balls of his feet and taking careful aim.

“Remember,” Iker says “kill only if necessary. We’re car thieves, not murderers.” 

“Says the guy who laughed while Sergio stabbed Diego Costa thirteen times.”

“Shut up and concentrate, Luka. God.”

And as the first gunshot rings through the alley, Cris wants to say that there is no God here. He settles for shooting Jordi Alba in the gut. A perfect shot. Non-lethal, but immobilising. There’s a rush of air as Isco fires at Sergio Roberto. 

“All clear,” Toni tells them, and so both of them make their way forward, guns held at the ready. 

They come to a fork, and with a last glance at each other, they each take separate paths. Now alone, Cris keeps his ears perked for any sound at all, eyes darting between the different shadows in the dark alley. There is the slight click of a gun being loaded, and he dives behind a dumpster, swearing under his breath just as a shot rings out from in front of him. He looks out, quickly firing a shot before ducking back in. There’s a shot in answer, and he comes out, firing behind him as he does. Sound travels differently in closed spaces, and is usually coming from the opposite direction that you think it is. He catches a glimpse of a shoe, and takes aim quickly, shooting at it. There’s a loud scream, and Vidal falls into the open, clutching at his foot. Cris quickly shoots him in both hands before racing away, breathing harshly as his adrenaline spikes. 

He’s grinning as he meets Mascherano and he can’t entirely help it. 

This is what he lives for, these terribly dangerous moments in alleys so dark he can barely see. 

He’s grin widens when Masche fires in his direction, and he’s laughing when he shoots him too. 

He looks down at his shoes and frowns at the splatters of blood on them. He’ll have to throw them away now. Ensuring that there’s no blood on the underside of them, he runs off again. He’s taking a quick minute to reload his gun when Dani Alves runs into him, a wicked knife in his hand. 

He breathed out a laugh, watching as Alves started to pace in a circle. Cris matched him, step for step, eyes tracking his every movement. He was hyper aware of every inch of space as Alves's body tensed. Anticipating the manoeuvre, Cris ducked, watching as Alves’s knife cleaved through the air just above his head. He spun to the side, pulling out his own knife from an inner pocket in his jacket. His gun clattered to the floor. Alves leapt back and both of them straightened again, warily eyeing the other. 

Alves was fast. Cris would have to be faster. 

The fingers of his free hand curled at his side, nail biting into skin. 

Cris started this time. He dipped under Alves’s guard and slashed at his stomach. Alves blocked it and the knives clashed with a shriek that sent sparks flying into the air. Cris tried not to give him too much time to react. He pulled away and brought it down at Alves’s chest as hard as he could. Alves sidestepped to the right just enough and the blade passed a hair's breadth from his chest. Cris couldn’t help the grin. It had been a long time before he came across someone quite this good, Before Cris could respond with a follow-up, Alves swiftly got past his guard and punched him square in the stomach, stunning him for a brief moment. Cris kicked him in the gut, a blow that had him doubling over, but as Cris's knife flew downwards in the clean strike that should've cut his jugular, he rolled smoothly, knocking Cris’s feet out from under him. There was a loud thud as his head hit the hard ground, and then there was a sharp, cold pain in his abdomen. He couldn’t breathe. But the adrenaline coursing through his blood screams to do something, so he opens his eyes, Alves’s belt the first thing he sees. And tucked in his belt is a gun. Raising his foot, he kicks Alves in the face, lunging for the gun and ignoring the jabbing pain in his abdomen. He doesn’t know quite how the gun ends up in his hands, but then instinct takes over. Loading and shooting are as natural to him as breathing. Alves’s body falls onto his. Groaning as the pain increases, he pushes a dead Dani Alves off of himself and takes a good look at his abdomen.   
He almost screams. The only thing he sees is blood, but he forces himself to take a deep breath. It isn’t too deep. He could make it to the car. 

“Everyone fall back,” Iker’s voice comes, and it sounds triumphant. “They’re retreating. We’ve won.”

Panting, hand pressed carefully to the stab wound, he gets to his feet, walking in the direction of the car. One step, he tells himself, just one more step. He’d never forgive himself if he died because of Dani Alves. He’s almost to the point where he left Isco when there’s a loud pounding of footsteps and harsh breathing and gunshots. 

He’s a little sluggish now, and he can’t get out of the way fast enough as Lionel Messi barrels through the streets, barely looking as he shoots blindly over his shoulder. He slams into Cris and they both tumble to the ground, Cris unable to keep in the shout of pain as Leo’s hand presses painfully against the wound. 

“Shit,” Leo hisses, getting off him immediately, and he keeps his gun pointed at him until he realises that Cris has no interest in shooting him “Are you okay?” 

He clearly hasn’t noticed the blood on his hand yet. 

“You’re not going to shoot me?” Cris struggles to get out, words slurring together as he starts getting dizzy.

Leo looks annoyed. 

“No, Cri-Holy shit,” he drops to his knees beside him, forcing Cris’s hand away from the stab wound. “who -?”

“Alves,” Cris mutters, taking in a deep breath so he doesn’t lose consciousness as Leo hoists him to his feet. 

“Promise me you’re not going to be a hero and get that checked out,” 

“I have no interest in dying, Leo. I will definitely get it checked out.” he says, and just as Leo nods, he sways dangerously on his feet, pain starting to cloud over his mind. 

“Leo!” someone yells, and Leo looks at Cris in alarm. 

“Go,” he whispers, and presses a quick kiss to his lips before running off. 

And Cris doesn’t really know he makes it to the car, but he gets caught between Casemiro and Toniwho push him into the front seat of Sergio’s car. Breathing harshly, Cris allows himself to close his eyes for a second. 

That’s when he hears the scream, and he jerks up in alarm.

“I know, Lucas, I know,” Isco murmurs from the back “But you need to stay with me, okay?”

“What happened?” Cris gets out

“Lucas got shot,” Sergio snarls and Cris thinks it's better not to say anything else until they get to the hospital. He’s getting sleepy anyways. Sergio elbows his arm when they get to the emergency room to wake him up, and they all   
walk in. Sergio and Isco carrying Lucas. 

“Are there any more injuries?’ a nurse asks “Because we’re short-staffed, so if there are, we’ll have to prioritise.”

“Three more gunshot wounds,” Sergio says, 

“Any of them hit an artery?”

“Yes, his,” Sergio jerks his chin at Lucas and Cris decides that gunshots wounds are more important than a stab. The nurse walks away and Sergio turns to Cris, looking at him properly for the first time. 

“Are you sure you’re okay? You’re looking a little pale.”

Probably the blood loss. 

“It’s fine, I think I just twisted my ankle." Indeed, there is a throbbing pain in his ankle. He must’ve twisted it when he ran into Masche. 

Sergio looks at him suspiciously, but Cris’s arms-carefully crossed over the stab wound raise no suspicion- so Cris rolls his eyes.

“I promise, Sese.”

“Okay.”

But the adrenaline has faded, and he can barely stay upright. He walks over to the blue plastic chairs, squinting through the black spots in his vision when he loses his balance, falling face first onto the chair. 

“Fuck,” Sergio hisses, dropping to his knees beside him and forcing his hand’s away from his abdomen “Cris!”

“It’s just a stab,” Cris waves a hand futilely while Sergio carefully applies pressure to it. 

“You said you were okay! You promised!”

“I am,” Cris insists before promptly fainting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dani Alves kicked Cris in the abdomen once, so I changed that to a stab in the abdomen. Let me know what you think :)


	10. In which Leo visits Cris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leo comes to see Cris in the hospital and Sergio has a dinner date with Gerard coming up-which Cris is still unsure about, for the record.

White lights, quiet murmurs and a hand holding his are the first things Cris becomes aware of. Fighting the burning in his eyes, he cracks them open and winds up looking straight at a half asleep Sergio, who is the one holding his hand. 

“You’re awake,” he says between yawns and Cris groans in response.

“What’s going on?” 

“What’s going on with you, or what’s going on with the crew?”

“Both?”

“Lucas is stable, Keylor got shot in the leg, but it wasn’t deep so he’ll be fine in a while, Dani almost got himself shot in the face, it ended up going through his ear. Karim got stabbed in the hand.”  
“Is he okay?” 

Sergio glares at him. 

“He’s fine.”

There’s a pointed silence in the room as Cris pulls the blanket off himself to look at his abdomen. It’s wrapped in bandages, and it hurts when he moves, but lying still doesn’t really bother him. 

“You lied to me,” Sergio says, and he looks dead straight into Cris’s eyes.

“Because Lucas got shot in an artery!” Cris protests

“And you got stabbed in an equally dangerous place!” Sergio stands up, spreading his arms wide in exasperation.

“Well, it ended up alright, didn’t it?” Cris responds testily. 

“No it didn’t, Cris! You lost so much blood they had to put more into you from a fucking blood bag! If they were any later you would’ve died!” 

“It’s going to take more than Dani Alves to kill me, thank you very much.”

“No it wouldn’t, because you were almost gone. Alves did this?”

“Yes, but I killed him for it,” 

Sergio snorts, and he still looks pissed, but he sits back down. 

“You’re an ass,” he says, rubbing his eyes “ I was worried.”

“Sorry,” Cris shrugs. 

Then he starts thinking back to the fight, and remembers running into Leo. And with an awful, sinking feeling he remembers the promise he made. 

“Is-um, is Leo okay?”

“Last time I saw him he was fine. Had a nasty cut on his leg but he was alive. Haven’t heard anything from them yet.”

“Do they know that we were the ones who orchestrated the whole Bayern thing?” 

“No, and anyways, Bayern kicked their asses. Gained 800 meters of territory while they were at it.”

“How much did we get?”

“Combined with Espanyol, 300 metres, so Barca lost over a 1000.”

“Holy shit,” Cris shakes his head, smiling at the ceiling. “What about Pique? Is he okay?”

Sergio’s face lights up.

“Yeah, he’s fine. He wants to meet up.”

Cris frowns. 

“What?”

“Yeah, he called and said he wanted to go out for dinner in a few days.”

“Where?” Cris is getting more bewildered by the second, because who the fuck asks someone to go out for dinner after they lost a thousand meters of territory to them?

“Some diner,” Sergio shrugs

“On our territory-”

“By the border, actually. Maybe fifty meters into Barca’s territory.”

“And none of that seems fishy to you?”

“Why would it?” Sergio frowns at him “I trust Geri.”

As Cris opens his mouth again, Sergio interrupts.

“Leo called you a few times, I didn’t pick up, but here.” He hands Cris his phone, where there are four missed calls. 

He calls back, unable to stop his smile from spreading.

“Cris?”

“Hey,”

“Shit, man, are you okay?”

“I’m in the hospital right now, but yeah I’m fine.”

“You scared the shit out of me, Cris,” Leo sighs. 

“I’m sorry,” he sighs, and Sergio raises his eyebrows as he looks up from his phone. Cris rolls his eyes and gestures for him to get out. 

“I’ll just come see you tomorrow, then?” he mouths, and Cris shrugs.

“It’s fine, I’m just glad you’re okay.”

There’s a feeling of unease in Cris’s gut as he agrees. 

“Is anyone there with you right now?” Leo asks

“Sergio just left.”

“Can, um… Can I- I’m coming to see you, okay?”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“It’s a terrible idea, but I’m coming anyways,”

“Please don’t get yourself killed.”

“I’ve been handing Real Madrid their asses for years now, Cris. It’s nothing I can’t handle.”

“Just be careful, alright?”

“Alright.” Leo laughs lightly “I’ll be there in fifteen.”

Cris hangs up, closing his eyes with a sigh. Leo doesn’t need to know about any of this. He doesn’t know about Real being responsible for this, and he doesn’t need to. He throws his head back, groaning in frustration. Why is  
everything so complicated?

He looks uneasily around the room. There aren’t really any murder weapons in here, so there’s a significantly low chance of Leo killing him. Of course, he could just bring a gun. He sighs, and finds that he doesn’t really care. 

He scrolls on his phone for a while, texts his mom, and an old friend and he’s just about to fall asleep again when the door swings open slowly. Leo walks in, grinning slightly.

“Told you I’d do it,” he whispers, sitting on the chair Sergio just got up from. 

“If you’re here to boast, I’d rather go to sleep,” Cris hisses 

Leo frowns at him.

“Why would I be boasting? We lost 1100 meters of territory.”

“So basically what you’re saying is that Real Madrid are the superior team.”

He waits for Leo to roll his eyes and say something in favour of Barcelona, but he just sighs and puts his head in his hands. 

“As much as I hate to admit it, right now you are.”

Cris arches an eyebrow. Leo groans again, rubbing viciously at his face.

“I let us lose 1100 meters of territory.” 

“What the fuck does that mean? You didn’t let them lose anything-”

“I’m the captain, Cris! They rely on me!”

“So what, that means you’re supposed to save their asses every time they get into fuck ups?”

“Yes I am!” he stands suddenly, and he’s almost shouting as he says “Dani is dead, because I was too slow! Me! Not Geri, or Luis, or Frenkie, me!”

“Were you close to him?” Cris breathes

“Kind of. To an extent, but that doesn’t matter. He was my responsibility.”

“Sure, but you can't prevent death, Leozinho, no matter how much you want to. You’re still human. Now, come.” he raises a corner of the blanket invitingly

“What?” Leo glares at him.

“Get in, I’m cold.” he carefully scoots over to the edge, trying not to move too much. Leo watches him carefully, completely still, eyes unfocused. Then he carefully gets in, putting an arm around Cris as he curls into Leo, breathing in smell. He smells like wood and metal and laundry detergent. His stab wound protests at the movement, but he ignores it, closing his eyes. 

“Pique and Sergio got together,” he murmurs as sleep starts to envelop him.

“I know,” Leo says “he was smiling like an idiot for three entire days.”

“So I was right when I said they hadn’t admitted anything to each other.” 

Leo presses a soft kiss to his forehead.


	11. In which Sergio's date goes very, very wrong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything was going too well to last, wasn't it?

Two weeks later, Sergio finally goes out on his date with Gerard, which Cris is still unsure about. 

So the natural course of action is to follow him. Subtly of course, but he’s there. The stab wound is better, he can move around easily, as long as he doesn’t have to run, it should be fine. It also helps him keep his mind off things, because he knows he was sloppy with the whole Alves thing. He knows there’s evidence there somewhere. His blood, or Alves’s gun with his fingerprints on it, possibly even the knife he dropped.

He really is fortune’s fool. 

But right now, he’s focused on Sergio. There’s something off about this whole thing. They go to some hidden diner tucked away in a corner of an empty street, which practically has red flags all over it-but Sergio goes in anyways.   
Cris sits in his car, watching through the window carefully. He’s barely in there for a minute when he walks out with Pique. They walk down another equally dark street, and Cris gets out of the car, entering the same alleyway.   
Sergio’s looking a little antsy now, but Pique doesn’t seem to notice as he stops to point something out. Sergio glances at it, and in that time, Gerard Pique pulls out a gun. Cris grabs at the throwing knife in his jacket as Sergio gapes at him.

“What are you doing?”

“I know what you did,” Pique bites out

“What do you mean?” Sergio asks, and the hands he shoves into his pockets are shaking. 

“You were the ones who put the cars there. You were the ones who tipped off the police and got us blamed.” the gun in Pique’s hand clicks menacingly as he points it straight at Sergio’s head.

“Geri,” Sergio says, and his voice is trembling. 

And Cris cocks his wrist back, taking careful aim, and throwing it as hard as humanly possible. His aim is as unerring as ever. The knife hits the gun, and the sheer force of it sends the gun flying out of Pique’s grip. Sergio’s quick   
to punch him in the face and pick up the gun so he can’t shoot them. But he doesn’t move to run. He stands right there, hands curling into fists.

“What the fuck, Gerard?” he asks, voice low and trembling with anger

“It was the least you deserved,” Pique hisses, clutching at his bloody nose.

“Killing me? Really? You were going to kill me for shit like that? When you’ve done much worse?”

“I was going to kill you because you fucking used me!” Pique roars back

“What does that even mean?”

“You used me to find out how to fuck us over, and you fucking lied when you said you liked m-”

“Don’t you dare complete that sentence,” Sergio shoves a finger in his face, glaring fiercely “that’s not what it was about and you know it.”

“No I don’t, Sergio.”

“He’s not lying, he never used you.” Cris says, and he walks closer “the Bayern thing was my idea, and well...Isco did the rest.Sergio had nothing to do with any of it.”

Pique laughs almost hysterically.

“That’s perfect! Leo’s the one being used here,” he says, and he turns his laserlike focus from Sergio onto Cris ‘I wonder what he’ll say when he finds out.”

Cris’s blood runs cold. And for the first time, he can’t think of something to say, because Leo. If Leo finds out and comes to the same conclusion Gerard did- it’s terrible to think about, so he tries not to. Because he does care about Leo, he genuinely likes him. And he can’t lose him. Not the way he lost James. 

“No one is using anyone.” Sergio says, and his voice is deadly calm “Cris cares for Leo, and I care for you-though that’s rapidly changing with every word that comes out of your mouth. And you will not tell Leo a thing.”

“No.” Gerard says “he’s my best friend and I’m not keeping it from him that his boytoy is the one who got us into this mess. I’ll love watching him kill you,” 

“You will not tell him.” Sergio says a little more forcefully this time “because you owe us your life.”

Gerard’s mouth opens, and he slams it shut again, gaping at them.

“You’re kidding. Since when have I owed you a life debt?”

“Right now? As far as I’m concerned, Cris could have put that knife straight through your heart. Not that you seem to have one.”

Gerard gapes at both of them, mouth opening and closing like a fish. Then he blinks a few times and sighs.

“So you're cashing it in now?”

“Yes,” Sergio says “you don’t tell Messi shit, understand?”

“Fine.” he bites out, and Cris turns to leave. 

Sergio hands his gun back to him, and he looks tired. Like he can’t stand to support himself. 

“Gerard,” he says, just as Cris reaches the end of the alley “for what it’s worth, I do like you. I think I love you. And I’d never use you.” Sergio sticks his chin out and high, following Cris.

There’s a broken cry, and a loud rhythmic pounding of footsteps as Gerard catches Sergio’s wrist. 

“Sese-”

“Leave me alone, Pique. You were right. Real and Barca don’t mix. You were right, okay?” 

And he catches up to Cris, grabbing his hand and leading them out. His palm is warm and clammy, and Cris can feel his heart beating fiercely in his wrist, but he says nothing. He doesn’t say anything as they get into the car and   
Sergio starts crying. He doesn’t know what to say. Maybe he’s been deluding himself. 

Real Madrid and Barcelona clearly can’t work. 

And the thought of that hurts so much that he can barely breathe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know what I just did or why I did it, but it happened, so I guess we're rolling with it. Also Pique distracted Sergio with an 'omg look at *thing in the distance that doesn't really exist*' lmaoo. Anyways, let me know what you think :)


	12. In which Leo takes Cris out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cris tells himself he'll allow himself one last night with his boyfriend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Major credit to Temis cause they always make me smile and they've just been so supportive and that means a lot on my first fic.

It’s another race night, and even though he completely annihilated some guy from Roma, Cris still feels sick to his core every time he and Leo glance at each other.   
He’s avoiding his boyfriend, trying to come to terms with the fact that he was only on borrowed time. At some point they would have to break it off, and maybe it would hurt less if it happened now. Leo isn’t taking any of it, though, and he practically forces Cris to come up to one of the fire escapes with him. 

“What’s wrong?” he asks the minute they’re away from the bright red lights, and the noise. 

“Nothing,” Cris tries for a smile “I actually need to go-”

“No! Come on, I heard from somewhere that the stars are going to be really bright today. We can go to a park and-”

“Leo, please I need to go.”

“Come on, Cris,” Leo sounds disappointed “we don’t get to see each other that much anyways.”

And Cris makes the mistake of looking straight into Leo’s dark eyes, and he tells himself ‘just one more night’.

“Fine, let me just tell Isco I’m leaving.” he hops down, looking for Isco who’s sitting on a fence and staring at something, who upon further inspection is Frenkie De Jong.

“Really?” Cris moves closer, nudging him with his elbow 

“I don’t know,” Isco shrugs. And maybe Cris would have told him to go talk to the newest addition in Barcelona, but now he just tells him he’s feeling a little sick and leaving early.

He gets into Leo’s car with him, and lets him drive out of Real territory. They go to the same park they went to last time, but as Cris gets off the car, Leo leans down, pulling out a basket from where it was lying next to his seat and the door. 

“What’s that?” Cris arches his eyebrows

“Food,” Leo says simply, but when Cris grins at him, he sees that Leo’s a dark, deep red. 

“Is this a date?” he asks teasingly, entwining his fingers in Leo’s. Leo turns an even darker red as he mutters

“Yeah.Unless you want to go eat somewhere that’s like an actual restaurant ‘cause my cooking might not be that good and-”

“Wait, you made everything in there?” Cris opens the top of the basket to peer inside, talking an appreciative look at it all. Leo slams the lid back down and shifts his weight nervously. 

“Yes. That’s why the offer to eat out still stands.”

Cris presses a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth.

“This is perfect.”

Leo looks supremely pleased with himself as they walk through the park, finding a tall tree to sit under. Cris helps Leo get the food out, and Leo groans.

“What?”

“Nothing. I just forgot something at home.” 

“What more could you possibly need? There’s five big containers here.”

“It’s mostly just different empanadas and provoleta.”

Cris shrugs.

“Stop worrying and let me start eating. It smells good.”

“Let's hope it tastes good too.” 

Cris takes a bite of the empanada, and almost moans at the taste. Leo, watching him anxiously, takes a relieved sigh before grabbing one himself.

“That’s really fucking good,” Cris nods emphatically

Leo grins widely.

“Try this one,” 

Cris tries it, and many more, and by the time they get to the Provoleta, he’s about to burst. He eats it anyways, because Leo is actually an amazing cook. Once they’ve finished every last crumb, he sighs, flopping backwards into the grass.

“Holy shit, Leo.”

Leo snorts as he lies next to Cris, resting his head on his shoulder. 

“It was a team effort honestly. I forced Luis to get me cheese at 3 in the morning.” 

“Stop with the humility, Leo,” Cris rolls his eyes, “take credit for something for once.”

“Fine. I’m an amazing cook.”

“That’s better. Next order of business is you taking credit for those races you win.”

“I just do the last bit of work.” Leo shakes his head “more people deserve-”

Cris rolls his eyes again, turning and cutting Leo off by kissing him gently.Not breaking it, Leo gets up so he’s straddling Cris. 

“No,” Cris pulls back “I refuse to have sex in a park.Again.”

“But there’s nowhere else to go,” Leo groans

“Then get off of me,” Cris elbows him lightly “stargazing is fun too.”

Leo growls and stands up, spreading his arms in exasperation.

“You know what, fuck it. Come on, let’s go to my place.”

“Wait, really?” Cris sits up, and suddenly that sinking feeling returns. 

If he goes, then Leo will undoubtedly think he just wanted information when they inevitably break up. 

“I don’t know,” he hedges 

“It’s okay,” Leo gets off him again, and when Cris shivers at the loss of heat, he pulls Cris into his chest and wraps his arms around him “we don’t have to.”

Cris smiles at him, snuggling further into his hoodie and they watch the stars glittering in the sky. 

“You know what we should do,” Leo says sleepily, tightening his bear hug on Cris

“What?”

“Get married.” he yawns widely

“Wha-are you- Leo are you high? Were there drugs in those empanadas?” 

“No!” Leo whines, flapping his hoodie sleeves in Cris’s face “look, Dani died right, so what if you die, or I die? We should just...do everything before that happens.”

“You’re not going to die,” Cris scowls at him.

“Probably not, but just in case.”

“We’ll see.” he grins as Leo presses a sleepy kiss to his temple. “Do you want to go home? You’re falling asleep.”

“No.” he yawns again “I like being with you.”

And Cris is feeling just a little selfish today, so he doesn’t protest. The sky is turning a rosy pink, and it brings the worries of yesterday with it. He’ll need to break up with Leo soon. If tonight was any indication, it needs to be soon if he wants to minimise the hurt Leo’s probably going to feel. That both of them are going to feel. He sighs and moves his face away from Leo’s chest, rolling onto his back. Leo makes a disgruntled noise at the lack of warmth. 

“Leo,” he says quietly, rubbing his shoulder gently “come on, wake up. It’s morning.”

Leo lets out a sound that sounds suspiciously like a whine. Cris can’t help his laughter, and he has to lie back down until he can stop laughing. As he gets up, Leo says 

“You should laugh more often. I like it.” 

“Only for you, then.” Cris grins, still laughing softly as he helps Leo up. “What are you doing later? We could grab breakfast,”

“Sorry,” Leo shakes his head, running his hands through his hair,”I need to try and figure out who killed Dani.”

“What are you going to do if you find him?”

Leo’s eyes are hard as he looks at Cris.

“Kill him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hurt myself by writing that last chapter, so I wrote myself some fluff. I think this is nearing the end now, maybe two or three more chapters. Anyways, let me know what you think :)


	13. In which Gerard needs to make a decision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gerard needs to decide between love and family.

“Leo,” Gerard calls, stopping his captain who is walking out of headquarters with a determined scowl on his face

“What’s up,” Leo says a little distractedly,

“I need you to sign off on the deal with Napoli for the trading routes.” he shoves a piece of paper at him.

“A little late on this, aren’t you?” Leo raises an eyebrow as he scans through the contract.

“I looked for you yesterday but I couldn’t find you. You weren’t home either.”

“Right,” Leo clears his throat, quickly giving the paper off “this is fine. Just make sure they sign it by afternoon.”

“Sure, where are you going?”

“To that alley where Dani was killed. It’s about time I figure out who did this.”

“Good luck,” Geri nods, going back inside to get the Napoli captain on the phone. 

Poor Dani. They were usually paired on missions together, and Gerard never thought he could’ve been killed during a raid. He shakes his head as he tries to think of who could have killed him. No one from Espanyol could have dreamed of killing him, and he was alive when they left Bayern’s territory. And there’s a sudden chill in Gerard’s blood, because if it wasn’t Espanyol or Bayern, it was Real. And judging from what he knows of everyone’s locations, Dani had gone to intercept Ronaldo, Kroos and Isco. 

He really shouldn’t be feeling guilty about this, he tells himself as he slams to a stop, staring after Leo. There’s no reason to. He doesn’t owe Real anything, his life debt was paid by not telling Leo about the cars. And if there’s anything that will end Real’s reign, it’s an angry Leo. But then he thinks of Sergio, almost unwillingly, thinks of his honey eyes, and his raspy voice, his tattoos, and realises he doesn’t want him six feet under. 

He slams the paper down on Umtiti’s desk, mumbles something about calling the Napoli guys and races after Leo. No need to call Sergio right now. Leo might not even find anything. He races for the alley, which is incidentally not far from here and makes it a while after Leo does. He’s standing quietly to the side, staring down at the ground where they found him. It’s a mess of dried, crusty blood. Gerard quietly climbs up a fire escape so he’s on the roof just next to Leo and settles down to wait. Leo calls someone, and then snaps to hurry up before hanging up. 

Soon a policewoman who has a soft spot for Leo-Antonela- appears, looking over her shoulder with a briefcase in hand.

“Hey, Leo.”

“Hey, Anto.”

“You guys really need to start cleaning up your messes. We’re getting a new head of department who will definitely not be swayed by any amount of money you throw at him.”

“Don’t worry. He’s not becoming head. He’s getting on a plane to Rio tomorrow.” Leo says dismissively 

“Man, please stop threatening all the hopeful department heads. You know how much of an asshole the current one is.”

Leo shakes his head.

“There shouldn’t be that much blood from a shot to the head, should there?”

Antonela snorts.

“Of course not.”

“So there’s a high chance this could be the murderer’s blood.”

“Pretty high,” 

Gerard tenses as Antonela opens her briefcase, scrapes off some blood and starts trying to identify the person. It’s ten minutes before she speaks, and Gerard barely breathes the entire time. Please, don’t be anyone from Real’s blood.

Don’t be Sergio’s blood. 

He knows it’s unlikely, Sergio was in another corner of the city with Iker, but there was still a chance. 

“It’s a Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro?”

The only thing Gerard can hear is the wind as it winds leisurely through the alley. 

“What?” Leo’s whisper is so faint that Gerard can barely hear it. 

“Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro. Lives in Madrid. Probably a part of Real Madrid. Do you know him?”

Leo doesn’t answer for a long time. 

“We’re going after him aren’t we?” comes a new voice, and Gerard frowns, trying to see who it is, 

Luis. Antonela leaves without so much as a goodbye. She doesn’t like Luis much after she saw him snap a man’s neck like it was a twig.

“What?” Leo asks distractedly 

“You’re going to kill him, aren’t you?”

Leo doesn’t say anything, and he doesn’t meet Luis’s eyes, and Luis looks incredulous=s as he grabs Leo by the shoulders and spins him to face him. 

“Our laws demand it Leo! Blood will be paid with blood!”

“Luis, I-” Leo opens his hands, palms facing the heavens as if he’s praying “I can’t.”

“Why not? Leo, he killed Dani!” Luis spreads his arms wide, incredulity in his voice

“I can’t” Leo half sobs 

Luis’s face is old and his voice is hard when he says 

“You have to, Leo. For Dani, if not for the club.”

Leo sinks to the floor on his knees, staring blankly at the wall in front of him. 

“Sound the alarm,” he says weakly “we’re going on a hunt.” 

And when Luis leaves, Leo lowers his head and buries his face in his hands. Gerard doesn’t know if he’s crying, but he knows there is no reason for him to stay anymore. He climbs down as silently as he climbed up and is heading towards headquarters when he calls Sergio. 

It rings out once. 

Twice.

Thrice.

He tries one last time, and just as it’s about to ring out, there's a click on the other end.

“You have thirty seconds, and I better not hear anything about being sorry.” Sergio sounds bored, but firm.

“Leo found out that Ronaldo killed Dani-no I didn’t say anything, I swear. We’re coming. Cris is the target, you know the laws.”

And to his credit, Sergio doesn’t hesitate. 

“How long do we have?”

“Half an hour, maybe?” 

There’s a click as Sergio hangs up. Gerard bites his lip as he comes within view of headquarters and sees everyone running around in preparation, guns in hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is the second last chapter, just one more to go. Sorry for the delay, online school is hectic and exhausting and I've got board exams, so yeah. Also thinking of starting an au where they're all doctors or something, idk let me know if that would be fun. As always, let me know what you think :)


	14. Love and War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All's fair in love and war.

Leo finds Cris easily enough. It was the first place he went to. The fire escape where they met for the first time. Cris doesn't even have a gun. He's watching quietly as Leo climbs up the ladder.

He killed Dani, Leo reminds himself. He betrayed you, he killed Dani.

Is it really betrayal, though? Leo know he would've done the same if someone from Real Madrid was about to kill him. He can't kill him.

Then he thinks of Barcelona. Of the crew that welcomed him when they should've had no reason to. Is this how he repays them? By letting a murderer walk free?

He points the gun straight at Cris's chest.

"You killed him," he says, and his voice sounds hollow. "Dani."

Cris stares straight back at him, and it's like the gun pointing at his heart doesn't exist.

"I don't regret it." He says, "he was going to kill me."

"I'm going to kill you." Leo clenches the gun tighter

Cris shrugs far too nonchalantly for anyone to believe he was going to die.

"Are you?"

And Leo doesn't know how they got so close. The only thing separating them is the gun pressed into Cris's chest.

"Yes. Blood for blood."

But the gun shakes in his hand. Cris looks down, undoubtedly having felt the tremors. Leo's eyes burn. He knew something like this would happen, Barcelona and Madrid don't mix. But Cris is so close he can smell his cologne, and his thoughts are drawn back to that cold night in the park, when he had his arms wrapped around Cris and his head on his shoulder and everything was alright. He thinks of the way Cris smiled at him, eyes crinkling at the corners and skin glowing golden in the light of the rising sun. He thinks of his laugh, loud and deep and infectious. And he doesn't realise he's crying until Cris slowly raises his hand to wipe the tears off his cheeks.

Leo puts his finger on the trigger and Cris smiles faintly.

"Are you still going on about that?"

"You don't understand, I have to kill you."

"Do it, then. You've got your finger on the trigger. Just push it." Cris whispers challengingly

The gun shakes violently and Leo couldn't have hit a target an inch from his face even if he wanted to. He shoves the gun back into his holster.

"You've got your finger on the trigger," Cris says again, a faint smile on his face "but your trigger finger's mine."

And that's not exactly something Leo can dispute.

"What do we do?" He whispers and Cris bites his lip.

"I don't know." He admits, rolling his shoulders.

Gunshots ring through the city.

Someone screams.

"I don't know either," Leo says, heart beating too fast to be healthy. Cris sighs, turning to face him.

"We need to get them to stop fighting quickly, but what's going to keep them from starting again?" He crosses his arms.

Leo sits down; squinting in thought.

"Let's get married." Cris says

Leo's head snaps up so quickly it's a miracle he doesn't get whiplash.

"What?"

Cris shrugged

"I don't understand why our crews are fighting. Let's just end it. Don't worry, we'll each do our own thing once we get married, I won't hold you to anything, but if we get married that's equivalent to uniting them. And if we unite them-"

"They'll stop fighting," Leo snorts "it's stupid. But it could work."

"Are you sure, though? I mean Dani-"

"I wasn't close to him. And I actually think he was planning to switch over to Juve anyways."

"That doesn't-"

"I know, that doesn't justify being killed, but in the end, it was self-defence and you barely walked out alive. I can't blame you, no matter how much the others want me to."

"We can take it slow if you want, though."

"We're about to go get married, Cris. But yes, once we're married I'd like to take it slow." Leo grins up at him.

He stands and hugs him quickly, relishing in the way Cris leans into him, despite being the taller one.

He knows something is wrong when Cris sags, falling downwards and it's all Leo can do to keep him upright.

"Cris?" He looks at him, but Cris's brown eyes are unfocused.

Carefully setting him down, Leo tries to understand what's happening. It's like his head is filled with cotton balls as his gaze travels downward, to Cris's chest where there is red blood blossoming across the white fabric. There is buzzing in his ears, muted buzzing that he barely hears, a sharp pain in his throat as he realises he's screaming, his bony knees barking in pain from where they're pressed uncaringly against the metal bars. He tries to say 'Cris' to wake him up, but his tongue is heavy and awkward and wet with tears that have carved their way down his face and past his lips. His heart beat is almost painful as he runs out of breath to scream, and rocks back on his heels, gasping for breath, for the air that slammed from his lungs and never returned. Air so that his roiling stomach calms down, but there is no air, and Leo is collapsing onto all fours, throwing up, nose burning and dripping, throat hoarse and tears streaming down flushed cheeks.

This can't be happening. But the many many years of experience inside him know, that there is no coming back from a bullet to the heart. He wipes the back of his mouth, and only looks up when there's a loud clang on the metal hear him. He sees a pair of boots and with a despairing sob throws himself over Cris, because he needs him, he needs him, he needs him and no one can take him from him.

"Cris-what did you do you fucking piece of shit-"

"Sergio it clearly wasn't him!"

The boots race to the railing, there is a pause, there is a gunshot, and the boots stomp back towards Leo.

"Who was it?" The first voice says

"Sergi Roberto, the fucking snake."

"You got him?"

"Of course I got him. And now I'll get the flea too."

Leo looks up to the shine of a barrel pointed at his head. Sergio has a finger on the trigger, and unlike Leo, he is completely sure of what to do with it.

"Wait," Leo coughs out "before you do it-"

"Shut up-"

"No! Cris died for this!" Leo hisses "if you're going to kill me, find a way to unite Real and Barca. There is no other way to stop this."

"Of course there is," Sergio cocks his head "I can kill every one of you rats."

His finger squeezes the trigger, Leo sees Iker Casillas running up and he closes his eyes, flinching. Then there is pain, such pain he can barely breathe. He's screaming again. Screaming is the last thing he hears before he succumbs to the blinding pain.

\-------

"What is your problem?" Sergio snarls as he turns to face Iker, uncaring of the tears pooling in his eyes because that is his best friend lying over there with dull eyes and blood on his shirt.

"Killing him won't solve anything," Iker says wearily, shaking out the hand he used to slap Sergio's and throw off his aim.

"What do you suggest, then?" Sergio hisses

"He's right. Unity. We need to unite."

"How, Iker? How do we unite with Barcelona?" Sergio's half crying as he points an accusatory finger across the road where Sergi Roberto's dead body lies slumped on a roof.

"Marriage," Gerard Pique says quietly as he jumps off the roof to join them.

"Who's marrying-what?" He gapes at Iker.

"Don't look at me," Iker says "I'm already married."

Sergio understands the implication, and turns to face Gerard, mouth agape.

"Are you seriously suggesting I marry you?"

"We don't have a choice," Gerard says pleadingly "look, I'll let you live your life, we won't even live in the same house if you don't want to, but this needs to end. I can't watch more of my friends die."

And the tears in Gerard's eyes are the reason Sergio's heart doesn't rage at the thought of marrying him.

"Fine. Let hurry up. I know someone."

They get married quickly, Iker is the witness, and the marriage document is quickly signed with nothing more than a quick 'I do.'

Sergio's heart feels hollow as they hurtle through the city to where the bulk of the fighting is happening.

Iker and Gerard have gotten through to their respective crews an arranged for a ten-minute ceasefire.

It's in an alley that Sergio and Gerard clasp hands and entwine fingers and raise them high in the air. They don't have rings, so they found two elastic wires and wrapped them around their ring fingers. Their marriage certificate held by Gerard high in the air so it's clearly visible.

They're staring at a sea of shocked faces.

"Enough," Sergio whispers and he doesn't need to say anything else to explain-everyone understands. "I lost my best friend to this stupid war between us that's been going on so long we don't even remember the reason we were fighting. I lost my first love to this stupid, fucking war, but I refuse to lose Gerard Pique."

And Gerard's heart sinks, because he knows he is the first love Sergio is talking about. And now he knows that their love is dead. Sergio's eyes are hollow and unconcerned, despite the shakiness of his voice. And it's all Gerard can do to swallow and look away and accept it.

It's his fault, anyways.

"Why should we trust you?" Frenkie de Jong asks, but he's already inching closer to Isco.

"Because Cris died for this, and Iker is driving Leo to the hospital because he believed in the same thing. All three of them did. And it would've been easier to kill Leo and then end you all than take him to a hospital. We have no ill intentions, and a promise is a promise if it is made in blood."

Sergio slices the tip of finger just enough for a few drops of blood to fall the the dirty floor. Gerard does the same. And slowly, ever so slowly, the others do too.

It takes energy to be angry all the time. It is asking too much to fight for years and years on end. It is tiring to hold so much hate in the heart. And in the end, they are all carefree people who love the song of freedom in the wind. They don't wait around much, red lights mean nothing.

All lights are green in their eyes. And it's like a weight is lifted off Sergio's shoulders when every last person has made the promise of no ill intention. At some point, hatred turns to nothing. And they have reached that point. There is a long road of negotiations ahead of them but every step will be worth it if nothing like this happens again.

\----

A day later Leo Messi gains consciousness and is told that the bullet hit his spinal cord and he will never walk again. He will never drive again. He will never feel the sweet night air on his face as he crosses a finish line. He will never see Cris's smile again.

He takes the spare gun he always keeps hidden in his jacket out. Contemplates it.

Cris wouldn't want him to die.

But this is not for Cris.

At least, Cris is not a major factor.

It is his car, that gorgeous Ferrari and the way she purred under his command. The way he will never be able to hear that sound again. Never feel the wind on his face, or the adrenaline in his veins or the thrill of a raid or a heist. It is the loss of freedom that makes him put the gun in his mouth.

And it is the thought of being with his lover without any other worries that makes him pull the trigger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's the end. Thank you to everyone who got to this point :) I'll probably start a new one in a week or so, but until then, let me know what you think :))))


End file.
